In this episode of the Active Ingredients podcast, host Thomas Dove speaks with Alexandre Joyeux, Chief Operating Officer (COO) and President of FatiAbGen International GmbH.
Alexandre Joyeux has led global patient access and market access functions at Novartis and Merck KGaA, shaped a $9 billion gene therapy acquisition, and built biotech organisations with Korean and Asian partners.
In this conversation, he shares how he first learned to lead without formal authority, what it took to step into an interim franchise head role during a blockbuster drug launch, and why he treats patience as a strategic asset when working across cultures. He also offers practical advice on building high-performance teams, career reinvention, and what will separate the best leaders as artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes the workplace.
Key Takeaways
· Learn how trust, curiosity and purpose combine to form a leadership flywheel, and why inspiring others starts with building bridges, not issuing directives.
· Discover how to lead without formal authority by bringing the right external voices into the room to shift perspectives that no internal voice could move.
· Understand what it takes to step fully into an interim role from day one, and why the mental switch matters more than the job title.
· Explore the structured feedback sessions that accelerate trust between new leaders and their teams, and why acting on the outcomes matters as much as receiving them.
· Gain practical advice on building high-performance teams in life sciences, including why a shared vision and a can-do attitude often matter more than the perfect CV.
· Apply the principle of patience as a strategic asset when working across Asian cultures, where investing in relationships before business is a prerequisite, not a courtesy.
· Identify when the moment to reinvent your career has arrived, and how to use purposeful networking to move from large pharma into biotech building.
· Take away a simple principle for cross-cultural working: focus on what unites people first, and differences become far easier to address.
· Consider what will separate the best leaders as AI reshapes the workplace, and why Joyeux believes human qualities such as empathy, intuition and curiosity will matter more, not less.
Snippets
· "It's in your head. It all starts in your head. Right? So if you're all in, then things will flow from that."
· "I thought, if I don't have authority, who does? And it's the customer in the end."
· "Self-awareness sometimes is difficult to have on your own without the feedback and without having a mirror once in a while."
Timestamps & Topics
The following timestamps are approximations:
· [00:27:52] – Intro: Alexandre Joyeux’s career in global biotech and market access
· [00:28:36] – Key Ingredients: Trust, curiosity and purpose as leadership foundations
· [00:31:19] – Early Career: From rural Quebec to biotech via a borrowed conference fee
· [00:37:50] – First Leadership Moment: Influencing without authority at Merck KGaA
· [00:44:39] – Enterprise Leadership: Stepping into the Novartis neuroscience franchise head role
· [01:04:48] – Career Reinvention: Moving from big pharma to building biotech
· [01:11:44] – Cross-Cultural Leadership: Building trust with Korean and Asian partners
· [01:18:23] – Future Trends: AI, pricing pressure and the next generation of life sciences leaders
Resources
· Follow Alexandre Joyeux on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajoyeux/
· Follow Thomas Dove on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lifesciencesexecutivesearch/
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